Is it possible to get a sheild (like the droideka has) that can be deployed via autoturret or mine and 2 or 3 players can stand in the saftey of the sheild for a short period of time?

Hmm never thought of that. But I do know you can give the shield to any unit. How ever, when trying to add the shield dome to your custom unit, it wont show. I myself have tried this. I assume its hard coded. But the laser reflect effect works.

I've seen this done before. I'm pretty sure all it entails is making an autoturret that fires the droideka shield weapon (you can change the size of the shield in the odf).